


A Good Man is Hard to Find

by wanderingstoryteller



Series: No one ever said this life would be simple [29]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Flipped Gender Roles, Funny Until It's Not, Kidnapping, Lady Land, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 02:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingstoryteller/pseuds/wanderingstoryteller
Summary: Team TARDIS lands on a planet with a very distorted male to female ratio. Ryan has to fend off multiple unsolicited marriage proposals while the rest of the team investigate a potentially dangerous alien energy signal.





	A Good Man is Hard to Find

It was a highly unusual turn of events for Graham and Ryan to be kidnapped while Yaz and the Doctor remained free. Team TARDIS had not meant to end up on the lost earth colony of Marviko. They had wanted to try and go to a beach in the South of France. It came as something of a surprise when they all stepped out into a lovely fall day in a busy city square.

The Doctor and Yaz’s emergence from the TARDIS in bikinis attracted little interested, even if the Doctor was also wearing a ducky pool inflatable. Earlier when they were getting dressed, Yaz had threatened to never have sex with the Doctor again if she left the TARDIS with said duck floatie, the Doctor had called her bluff. She knew perfectly well that there was no force in existence that would really deter Yaz from wanting to have sex with her.

Yaz on the other hand was currently planning to do away with the inflatable the same way she had the Doctor’s fez a few months past. She suspected the TARDIS would aid her again in chucking it into the void of space during the dead of night. The Doctor never had realized what happened to the fez and Yaz never intended her to find out.

Graham’s appearance in the square in a full hawaiian shirt, swim trunks, flip flops, and a book under his arm got a lot of confused looks but no one paused or said anything. The people in the square were dressed in a mix of practical dull colored pants and trousers interspersed with the occasional sundress. The technology level looked like an odd mix of Napoleonic War level tools mixed with some more modern tech like electricity.  

Ryan’s exit from the TARDIS would have stopped traffic, if there had been any permitted in the city center. He certainly stopped all foot traffic, although he wore nothing more remarkable than blue swim trunks with cartoon sharks on them. His first thought was that perhaps people in the city were fascinated by beach balls, as he had one under his arm.

Every single woman in the square stopped and stared. As there were no men in the square, that actually meant everyone in the square.  For the main part they just looked very, very confused, as if they didn’t quite believe what they were seeing. The same effect might have been achieved if a large number of lingerie models were to storm the House of Lords and commence a can-can dance. It wasn’t impossible, it just really wasn’t expected.

“Lad, where’s your mother?” called out one woman who sounded genuinely concerned.

“Put on a shirt dear, it's cold,” added a woman of grandmotherly age.

Someone else wolf whistled.

Ryan bolted back into the TARDIS and Graham followed with Yaz and the Doctor in tow. While Ryan was a perfectly fine looking young man, women generally didn’t just stop and point at him in the street. This somewhat reminded him of a recurring nightmare he had where he found himself arriving at high school and finding he had forgotten his pants along with the rest of his clothes.  

Team TARDIS stepped back out again a bit later, now fully dressed.  They’d consulted a fair number of history books and figured out where and when they were. Marviko was ground zero for the first form of Blue Fever before it spread across nearly all the human colonies and mutated. On Marviko it most seriously affected men and boys. It killed eight out of nine boys in childhood. Had the Doctor not had half of all her companions vaccinated against all forms of the fever, they would have never ventured back out.

As it was though, the TARDIs was picking up weird energy signals and they needed to go investigate. The Doctor made the mistake of trying to convince Graham and Ryan to stay on the TARDIS where they would be safe. Graham especially wasn’t having it.

“Seriously Doc, I’m not afraid of dealing with a bit of sexism. You have to deal with loads of misogyny pretty much every time we go into the past.”

“It’s not just that Graham. Men are seriously rare on this planet. The book says they get kidnapped all the time here. They almost never go out alone in public because of that.”

“Yea but it’s not like granddad and I will be on our own. With Yaz and you there are four of us,” said Ryan.

“Your not leaving us behind,” insisted Graham.

Curious eyes followed their every step. Graham wasn’t sure what was going on but he didn’t like it. “Stay close son,” he warned Ryan.

Ryan made a show of rolling his eyes but he still did.

The Doctor led the way, oblivious to nearly everything but the buzzing of her sonic, well that and a pretty butterfly she saw, and then an ice cream stall she insisted they stop at.

The young woman who ran the ice cream stall blushed furiously as she handed over the cones and even made an almost startled sound when her hand brushed Ryan’s as she handed him his. She didn’t seem to know where to look, which was probably good as she barely cared that the Doctor paid her with a handful of very generic looking silver coins. Marviko did not use digital currency.

The Doctor always carried a small bit of silver infused with a minor psychic field that made it look like local currency for just such a situation. When the field wore off, whoever had received the coins would find themselves still holding something valuable at least.

As she accepted the coins, the girl whispered to the Doctor, “Your husband is really handsome.”

“He’s not my husband,” said the Doctor.

The woman’s eyes widened. “He’s your brother then. Is he unmarried?”

Ryan blinked a bit but smiled shyly at the pretty brunette, “I’m single.”

The ice cream seller brightened up. Still addressing the Doctor, instead of Ryan himself, “What is your family name? Are your mothers accepting proposals for him? My older sisters and I have finally saved up enough to pay a groom price and were looking.”

Ryan nearly choked on his ice cream. Graham had to give him a whump on the back. “Lad is a bit young for all of that.”

The ice cream girl blushed even redder and she actually bowed to Graham. “Forgive me honored grandfather for speaking of such matters in your presence.”

Now it was Graham’s turn to be confused. “Is there a reason you’re not supposed to?”

“Um…” she didn’t seem to know how to answer.

“I’m honestly asking, we’re not from around here and don’t know the customs.”

She looked like she’d have rather put her feet in hot coals than face the embarrassment of what she said next. “Well, in this country at least, proposals and marriage are sort of a women’s matter to arrange. It was rude of me to speak of it in front of you or your grandson. I just got excited and...I’m sorry I really was raised with better manners. I promise.”

“It’s alright. No harm done,” said the Doctor chipperly. Her sonic began to beep again and they followed the signal. It led them down several streets into a residential neighborhood that reminded Yaz slightly of Rome, not the vibrant modern city she had only seen on TV but the ancient one that the Doctor had once taken her to.

High clay walls surrounded each residential compound, and heavy metal gates blocked off front courtyards.

The Doctor’s buzzing screwdriver led them to one such door. There was a door knocker so she knocked.

A blond teenage girl eating an apple came to the gate. She dropped the apple when she saw a group with two men standing on the doorstep.

“Momma Kay!” she yelled back into the yard. “Your swore no more perspective husbands this month. You swore!”

“What?” A greying haired woman, who looked actually a bit old to be the girls mother, came towards the gate. “You and your sisters don’t go meet the Smith’s and their son until next month. What are you talking about?”

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Team Tardis. “Can I, um, help you?”

The Doctor fished her sonic paper out of her coat and held it up to the gate. “Yes, I’m afraid it is terribly important that we search your home.”

The woman squinted. “Provincial exotic animal catcher? What on earth do you think is in my house?”

“We’re tracking an escaped gusgus.”

“A what?”

“Highly destructive little pest species. You’d best let us come in and search before it can reproduce.”

The woman was still doubtful but she unlocked the gate. She nudged the teenage girl, “Go find your aunts. Tell them a pest inspector is here.”

The girl darted off.

It was a lovely if tiny courtyard, clearly meant as a formal greeting space if the little ornate dolphin fountain and large quantity of potted plants were any indication. There was nowhere to sit so it was likely not a space for actually entertaining or relaxing.

The older woman remembered her manners “My name is Kay Tremaine, welcome to my family home.”

“I’m the Doctor, these are my colleagues Yasmine, Graham, and Ryan.”

The woman shook the Doctor and Yaz’s hands. She ignored the hand that Graham offered her, gave him an odd look, and instead made a quick shallow bow to both men.

“So what does a gusgus look like?” she asked the Doctor.

The Doctor began to buzz her sonic about, letting it lead her down a hallway. “Small green yellow and brown creature, little red nose. They absolutely love cheese. Have you seen anything odd in this house lately?”

“One of my nieces brought back a fashion magazine from, the market, the whole thing was filled with polka dotted dresses, does that count?” She had a sense of humor at least. “Honestly I don’t know what's going on with the younger generation, wearing such bright and impractical colors. I’ll certainly never let any son or daughter of mine wear a swishy skirt.”

The Doctor’s screwdriver led her down a hall and then into a second courtyard that looked like it was likely used for more formal entertaining. There was a large collection pool and several low benches.

Their host didn’t raise any objection until the Doctor head for another gate.

“You can’t go in there, that is the men’s side of the house.”

The Doctor slightly tilted her head. “Why not?”

The woman stared at her as if she were stupid. “Because it’s the _men’s_ side of the house. I don’t care if you are from the provincial government, you are still an unrelated strange woman, you're not going near my husband or son.”

While the Doctor in general considered most social taboos to be foolish, she knew when she was running up against a rather serious one. She snapped her fingers.  “Ah, that’s why I brought two men with me, just in case the gusgus was hiding in the men’s side of a house.”

Kay Tremaine looked dubious but she still drew out her key ring again and gave Graham and Ryan a nod. “Alright, honored grandfather, young sir, come along, see if you can find this gusgus creature.”

The Doctor handed Graham her sonic, quickly explaining to him what he needed to do to keep scanning for the odd energy signal. It was at that pointed that the teenager returned with another older women who offered to bring Yaz and the Doctor some tea while they waited.

Kay led the two men through the gate. Ryan nearly fell backwards onto the stone floor when his foot landed on a child’s little red wagon. Graham managed to mostly catch him, but stumbled under the tall young man’s weight. Instinctively Kay reached out, helping to right them both. The moment she realized what she’d done she blushed and looked away with surprising modestly for a woman her age.

“Forgive me.”

“It’s alright, I think you saved me bashing my head,” said Ryan.

She still didn’t look at him. “It still wasn’t proper of me to touch you. I’m sorry.”

Graham frowned but didn’t say anything. What sort of place were they in where it was better to let a young man hit his head then for a woman to grab his arm?

They moved further into a lovely courtyard that was even more scattered with children's toys, shoes and the other detritus of a large family. There were about ten children of varying ages running about playing.  

“Who left out the wagon again!” boomed Kay. “You are in such trouble.”

A little boy of about eight looked up from the middle of a tea party that involved himself, a plastic tea set, three smaller girls, and a fair number of stuffed animals. He appeared to be the only male child present.“It was me Mamma Kay.”

He face instantly softened. “Joshi, sweetheart, you must be more careful.”

The child looked down at his plastic tea cup. “Sorry.”

She went to ruffle the little boy’s hair. “It’s okay. On don’t cry honey. I’m not mad, really I’m not.”

She was less gentle with the little girls also sitting on the blanket. “And what excuse do you lot have for not noticing and moving the wagon? You know your brother is forgetful.”

While Graham had little experience in the parenting department, it occurred to him that blaming younger children for an older child’s forgetfulness didn’t really make any sense. He also knew that criticizing a relative stranger on her parenting while he was a guest in her home would likely not be well received.

“What’s all the fuss?” A blond man in his late forties stepped into the courtyard. He had a baby in a sling and a toddler clinging very determinedly to his ankle.

He seemed very surprised when he saw Graham and Ryan. “who are they?”

“Provincial exotic animal catcher’s apparently dear. They think there is a gusgus in this part of the house.”

“A what?”

“A pest animal. It’s not dangerous but we just need to take a look around and we’ll be out of your hair in no time.” said Graham.

He began very industriously scanning things. The beeping did get louder when he pointed the device to the north. Ryan tried to follow Graham and found that one of the little girls from the tea party was tugging on his shirt. She had her thumb in her mouth and was too shy to speak. Not being utterly heartless, he let himself be drawn down to accept a plastic cup of pretend tea.

Kay was quickly distracted resolving a dispute between two bigger girls who were fighting over a book. The man, who Graham rather suspected was the father of all the children in the courtyard, if the high prevalence of curly blond hair was any indication, followed Graham around.

“You really work for the provincial government?”

“Yup,” Graham had no talent for lying so he kept his answers short.

“When did they lift the ban on men in government service?”

“They made a special exception for this.”

“What is it like, working outside the home I mean?” there was a look of such longing in the blond man’s face.

Something in Graham’s heart tightened a little bit. “It’s alright. Plenty of fresh air and all that.”

“Your not afraid of being kidnapped.”

“Not really. Are you?”

He shrugged, “Everyone tells me I should be, not that I’ve ever been out in public on my own or anything. When I was a young man I used to paint. I even had a gallery show once. I wanted to go to the opening but my mother and aunts said it wouldn’t be proper or safe. Then I got married and well it is not so easy to find time to paint when I have all these little ones to look after.” The baby in his arms began to fuss and he adjusted her in her sling. “How many children do you have?”

“Never really got around to that.”

The man blinked in confusion. “Did you not marry?”

“I did, I’m widowed now.”

A very odd look crossed the middle aged father’s face. “I’m sorry, it is just so rare to hear of a man being a widower. Did you marry into a small family?”

“Small family?” Graham looked up from scanning a column.  The screwdriver kept getting louder and quieter and he couldn’t figure out why.

“How many sisters were in the family? Men almost never outlive all of their wives.”

Graham was very confused now. “Grace didn’t have any sisters.”

“Wait, you only had one wife?”

“Yea.”

The man just looked at him in utter disbelief. Graham got the feeling that if he’d just admitted he was a time traveler following an odd energy signal he’d have surprised him less.

Finally something occurred to Graham. He tried pointing the sonic at his host. The sonic buzzing got louder, when he pointed it away the buzzing got quieter.

“You aren't wearing or holding anything new or odd are you?”

“I don’t...oh wait.” He lifted a necklace on a leather cord from around his neck. It was a rather steampunk looking mix of shiny metal bits and glass, all polished into an oval. “My wife Julia brought this back from a crafts fair for me.”

Graham pointed the sonic and it got really loud. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take it. I think it may contain some gusgus eggs.”

“Really?”

“Yea, trust me lad, you don’t want that thing hatching in your house.” He didn’t know what the thing was, but he suspected it might be dangerous, so he felt no guilt getting it away from the courtyard of children and back to the Doctor. If it turned out to be nothing they could always give it back.

“Take it then, please.”

Odd alien jewelry in hand, Graham and Ryan exited the men’s quarters to return to the formal courtyard. The Doctor and Yaz were drinking a sweet smelling tea with three middle aged women at a low table.

“They said the weird necklace Julia gave John has gugus eggs in it,” explained Kay as they entered the courtyard.

“I told you it looked weird,” said a dark haired woman.

“I thought it was pretty,” replied an embattled looking redhead. “Does it really have eggs in it? What did I give my husband?”

The Doctor, who was a reasonably talented liar when she needed to be, picked up the thread quickly when Graham handed her the necklace, “Yea, afraid so. They love laying their eggs on rusty metal.”

Something in the way she rapidly took back her screwdriver and buzzed the thing suggested to Graham that the odd piece of jewelry contained something considerably more dangerous that imaginary pest eggs. None of Team TARDIS relaxed until they saw the Doctor’s shoulders ease slighty.

“There, I’ve neutralized the eggs. I’ll just take this with me to be certain,” she stood.

“Won’t you stay?” asked the dark haired woman. “We’ve not met your colleagues.” She was looking at Graham and Ryan with considerable interest.

“We’ve really got to go,” said Graham.

“Before you do, what is your grandson’s family name?” asked the redhead.

“Julia,” criticized Kay. “Don’t be so forward. We don’t even know if the boys mothers are taking offers for his hand yet.”

“Well then we’d best ask then shouldn’t we?” huffed the woman. “Handsome eligible young men don’t grow on trees and we’ve got a who pack of elder daughters who are of age to find a husband and start a new household.”

“Don’t be so rude,” hissed Kay.

“Who’s being rude? The boy is wandering about in public with no escort but his grandfather and two unrelated women. He’s clearly no blushing violet. Maybe he’s even modern and liberal enough for your eldest girl.”

Ryan looked incredibly embarrassed. “Um.”

“He’s not looking to marry,” said Graham quickly. “Right Ryan?”

“Right,” he agreed.

They beat their retreat. Once they were out on the street again Graham asked. “So what is that thing Doc?”

“A miniature sonic mine. All it would have taken was a bit of a jostle and it would have blown. It was a minor miracle that it was still intact.”

Graham felt very ill. In his mind's eye he could see the inner courtyard and all its occupants destroyed.  “How could something like that get here?”

“Not sure. I’ve been picking up a lot of residual energy. I think there is a small rift on this planet somewhere. Probably a lot of odd things have fallen through, hopefully most haven’t been as dangerous as this.”

 

They were nearly back to the TARDIS, walking down a fairly narrow side street when a lot of things happened very quickly. Yaz would later remember it all as a blur of noise and pain. She did not see who hit her in the back of the head with something very heavy.

She woke slowly, blinking into a terribly bright light.

“Why does my head hurt?”

“Don’t move darling, you’ve got a concussion,” warned the Doctor.

Yaz tried anyway. Sitting up promptly resulted in her puking into the bin that the Doctor got under just in time.

When he stomach was empty, Yaz considered the small institutional grey room they were in and the white bed she was sitting on.

“Where are we?”

“Hospital. We were both unconscious when the local police found us so they brought us here.”

“Ryan and Graham?”

“Kidnapped, at least that's what they thought.”

“Why aren't you looking for them!”  
“I only woke up an hour ago. I’m harder to knock out than a human but our attackers gave me a couple extra taps with something very heavy. If I were human, I would be dead. You weren’t in such a good state either, I couldn’t leave your side until you woke up.”

“We’ve got to find them.”

“I’m going to. You are staying here.”

“Like hell.”

Yaz managed to find her feet and although she wobbled she didn’t puke this time.

“No, you’ve got to rest,” insisted the Doctor catching at her arm.

Yaz glared at her. “This is Graham and Ryan we are talking about. They have always rescued us. We will rescue them.”

The Doctor frowned, likely wondering if she could get away with some sort of Time Lord mind trick that would just make her lover fall asleep again. She wasn’t that kind of person though and she respected her mate’s right to make her own decisions, even stupid ones. “Alright but if you throw up again I’m taking you back to the TARDIS.”

In the end they actually did seek the help of the local authorities. The doctor had been favorably impressed by the city police when they had first helped her and Yaz. She asked them to provide backup and showed them where to go.

Actually finding Ryan and Graham proved surprisingly easy. The Team TARDIS patches she’d insisted everyone add to their coats weren’t just sentimental. There was a tracking device in each one. Yaz would later be having words with her girlfriend about what exactly invasion of privacy meant and how it was not ok to tag their friends like dogs with tracking collars.

In that moment though, as they hurried through the city on foot with several plain clothes detectives from the human trafficking division, she was simply grateful. The Doctor’s sonic led them to an old warehouse.

The Doctor strode in before anyone, Yaz included, could stop her. While the Doctor’s sonic couldn’t stop bullets, she could use it to zap guns and make them hot to the touch. She did exactly that to the first two smugglers who tried to shoot her. A third tried to punch her but Yaz was there in an instant, taking down the woman with a twisted arm around the back.

It would have been a really epic moment, if she hadn’t had to go throw up again and sit down against a crate the moment one of the detectives took over custody of the prisoner. They found Ryan and Graham tied up with bags over their heads locked in a back office. Neither said much after they untied them, although Ryan hugged the Doctor as tightly as he could.

“Did they hurt you?” asked the Doctor.

Graham shook his head. “No. They didn’t have a chance.”

“They were talking about selling us somewhere really far away, putting us on a ship and…” Ryan shivered. The Doctor hugged him tighter. “Your safe now. I’m here.”

They probably should have stuck around more to help the police, but the Doctor could tell that Graham and Ryan just wanted to go home, so they did. They hopped the police box straight back to Graham and Ryan’s flat. Unfortunately she took out Graham’s second favorite chair but he didn’t seem to really care.

Ryan went to his room and Yaz laid down on the couch. She wasn’t feeling great. The Doctor and Graham drank tea and ate chocolate biscuits in the kitchen.

“I couldn’t protect him,” said Graham simply. “If you and Yaz hadn’t come, he and I would have been shipped halfway across the planet to essentially be kept as breeding stock for some messed up family.”

“I know,” said the Doctor sipping dejectedly at her highly sugared tea. “I shouldn’t have taken you into danger like that.”

“We chose to leave the TARDIS, you warned us.”

“That doesn’t make what happened right.”

“I wasn’t saying it was.” Graham dejectedly dunked a biscuit, “I’m not used to being afraid in that way, not for myself and not for Ryan.”

“I...I’ll understand if Ryan and you don’t want to travel with me anymore.”

“What?” Graham was genuinely surprised. “Of course we want to keep traveling with you. I can’t speak for my grandson but I sure as hell am not giving this up.”

“Even if you know now that I can’t always keep you safe?”

He gave her a long look, “Doc, I never thought you could. I know you try with everything you have but you're not infallible. I accepted the danger from the very start.”

“And you accept me taking Ryan into that kind of danger as well?” it wasn’t the most tactful way she might have said it but she had to ask.

“Yes because I have never seen him so happy. There are a lot of kinds of danger and slow deaths in this world. If that lad ever gets stuck in a warehouse too long it will kill his soul long before he ever grows old. I should know, I waisted most of my life before Grace. For Ryan, this traveling, it lets him be who he really is, brave and strong and reaching for everything that there is in life.” For Graham that was a very long speech. He sat back and ate his soggy chocolate biscuit.

“So where should we go next?”

“Do you think you can ever actually get us to a beach? I’ve broken out my flip flops three times without getting sand in my toes.”

“I may have to have a talk with the TARDIS about no more shenanigans but I’ll make it happen.”

And they did make it to a very quiet little beach on Alpha Centurion Seven the next day. Yaz had to spend the entire time lying under a beach umbrella because she wasn’t feeling well enough to swim, Ryan got stung by a pink jellyfish that then cussed him out, and a seagull stole Grahams book but in the end it was a good day. They were all together and the universe, vast in its brightness and shadows, was waiting for them.

 


End file.
